


One Hermione, Of Muggle Born

by Alexicon



Series: harry potter works [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 03:03:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3834625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexicon/pseuds/Alexicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, it was on her very first visit to Diagon Alley that she first heard it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Hermione, Of Muggle Born

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't expecting to have Hermione feels today? I think it was inspired by something on tumblr, but more in the way that I saw a post about how awesome Hermione is and _boom_. This happened. Hope y'all like it!

The thing is, it was on her earliest visit to Diagon Alley that she first heard it.

Her father wasn’t there because someone had to run her parents’ office and apparently wizards hadn’t ever heard of a Saturday, but her mother was, and she was the one exchanging money at the teller’s counter (with an actual goblin!) whilst Hermione interrogated Professor Sinistra (who taught Astrology, not Astronomy) on anything and everything related to magic.

The professor was polite and kind, if not particularly brilliant, and Hermione thought Hogwarts would be absolutely amazing until Professor Sinistra made a throwaway comment after her response to Hermione's question about dragons.

It was, “You know, you’re quite clever for a muggleborn,” and Hermione’s brain paused for a moment to consider this.

There were a number of reactions she nearly replied with (including “What exactly do you mean by ‘for a muggleborn’?” and “Cleverer than you,”) but Hermione ultimately decided to remain silent on that and moved on. She kept it in the back of her mind, though.

When she cleared out the scanty ‘So You’ve Discovered You’re Magic’ section in Flourish and Blotts, the cashier looked at her with a horrible sort of condescending awe which she’d seen before in her teachers as she read a book alone under one of the slides on the playground.

The man selling wands to young children was an elderly man who gave Hermione an unsettling smile and a few sticks to wave in quick succession with no explanation as to how the wands suited each person or why there was a tape measuring her instep when she would only ever hold a wand in her hand, not her foot. (She assumed. She didn't know much about magic yet– there might be a way to wield a wand with her feet– but she doubted it.)

(The pet store wasn’t even worth mentioning. Her mother took one look at the animals flying or crawling around and shook her head, whispering, “That’s not healthy, Hermione, we’re not going in there.”)

Madam Malkin glanced at her neat skirt and blouse and cringed a little, explaining in a slow voice what robes were, and that all witches and wizards wear them all the time.

(“Isn’t that uncomfortable?” Hermione asked, smiling to herself at the thought of wizards swimming in one of the lacy monstrosities she’d seen on the racks when she came in.

Madam Malkin smiled in pity. “No more so than those buckles and chains you see on muggles,” she answered.

Hermione tilted her head in confusion and glanced at her mother, who shrugged, both unclear as to whom the tailor meant by this.)

The cauldron shop was run by an unpleasant man who laughed at them when she asked if the pewter cauldrons contained any lead. “You’ll find that in the wizarding world, we’re smarter about that kind of thing than the muggles,” the man told her with a mocking grin. “Don’t ask questions about things you know nothing about.”

Hermione nearly stormed out, but her mother shot her a quelling look before paying and chivvying her out of the shop.

“I only asked a question,” Hermione fumed on the way to Wiseacre’s Wizarding Emporium. “He didn’t need to be so rude about it.”

Sinistra shrugged. “You have to admit, it was a bit of a silly question. Witches and wizards aren’t likely to keep doing something if it’s going to kill them.” (Hermione didn’t recognize the irony of this statement until early in her second year, and by then she was already fully committed to proving almost everyone wrong about almost everything.)

“I had every right to ask, though,” she seethed. “That…that _pest_! I can’t believe he told me not to ask questions! What kind of person does that? You’re _supposed_ to ask questions about things you don’t know!”

“As a teacher, I do have to agree with you there,” Professor Sinistra admitted. “Don’t worry, though. Not all witches and wizards are like him.”

Hermione’s mother hummed noncommittally and pointed out the storefront next to them. “This is our next stop, right?” It was.

The next shopkeep wasn’t as blatantly rude, but he did eye Hermione strangely when she exclaimed over the adorably quaint telescopes the store sold. The Grangers had had a state-of-the-art telescope since Hermione was five and went through a long period of fascination with the stars.

“I hope this telescope has something magically special about it, because it looks like something we could make with a tube of cardboard,” Hermione’s mother murmured.

“But look at the sides, Mum, it’s painted with stars,” Hermione gushed, who was perhaps not quite as over that space phase as she had convinced her grandparents. “And they– look! They’re moving!”

The painted stars were indeed moving. Professor Sinistra looked pained to have forgotten something in her description of this new world and explained that moving paintings, as well as photographs, were the norm in the wizarding world.

“Is it a bit like a film?” Hermione asked curiously.

The professor brightened. “Oh, film, yes. You treat the film with a special potion before you put it in the camera.”

“No, I mean films at the cinema.”

“Oh, yes, those are muggle moving pictures, aren’t they? The paintings are more similar, I suppose, as those can talk. Photos just move,” the professor answered.

“What exactly makes up the difference, that one can talk and the other can’t?” questioned Hermione.

Sinistra frowned. “It’s the magic in how it’s prepared, I believe. Don’t ask me, I’m not really artistic.”

Hermione sighed, feeling unsatisfied with the information she'd gotten so far from Professor Sinistra. The woman was not particularly skilled at welcoming those new to the wizarding world to the fold, it seemed. Hermione desperately hoped that there would be more information in the books she’d acquired as an introduction. She knew that she’d need to be very familiar with the background of this new world if she wanted to fit in with those born into it.

“Excuse me,” she said to an older boy who knocked into her.

He looked her over, glared, and muttered, “Stand somewhere else, mudblood,” which sounded rather crude. She’d be looking that up later, too.

They had lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, which was the pub which provided passage between Diagon Alley and the rest of the world, and Professor Sinistra begged off, saying she had another muggleborn assigned for the evening.

“That one probably won’t be as fun as this trip was,” Sinistra groaned. “Most muggleborns aren’t quite as quick as you are.”

“Is that so?” Hermione’s mother replied neutrally. “Well, good luck to you, then.”

“Yes, good luck,” Hermione repeated woodenly, pasting a smile on her face which probably looked as fake as it felt. The professor didn’t look very closely, it seemed, because her goodbye was just as amiable as her hello had been.

“That was a disaster,” Hermione moaned when they stepped into their house.

“Maybe a bit,” conceded her mother. “These witches don’t seem to be very accepting of nonmagicals– what was the word, muggle?”

“Yes, muggle,” Hermione confirmed.

Her mother met her eyes steadily. “Do you still want to go to this Hogwarts?”

“I want to learn magic,” said Hermione.

“If it’s what you want, then we’ll send you.”

“It’s what I want.” Hermione nodded, then winced. “Just…don’t tell Dad about the stranger reactions, please?”

Her mother hugged her quickly. “We’ll see. Now, show me some of those spells from that book you were reading on the way home.”

And Hermione did.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr](http://lexiconallie.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
